The Bum
T
he message from Billy was short and simple: a telephone number with an Atlanta exchange and “Call after seven P.M.” It looked like Billy had located Connie Spinelli already, God love him. Elvis tucked the note in his pocket.
Elvis found the stairwell and limped up to the first floor with both crutches under his right shoulder and his left hand on the railing. His ankle was throbbing like the devil again, so at the landing, he took out the vial of painkillers and bit off half a pill. Just enough to dull the pain without losing his mental edge.
The first thing Elvis saw when he pushed open the stairwell door was Joey and the Colonel standing next to a potted palm in the vestibule. Colonel was in full-command mode, wagging a stubby finger in Joey's face and jawing a mile a minute. No doubt giving Joey instructions to get Elvis home and in bed ASAP: time is money and sprained ankles are untimely.
Elvis let the door swing closed in front of him, still standing in the stairwell. He dragged himself back down the stairs, then followed the first basement corridor to the rear of the building and limped back up to the first floor. No sign of Joey or the Colonel from hereâthey were on the other side of the elevator shaft. Elvis slipped out a back door and motioned to an MGM valet who was standing under an awning drinking Coke out a bottle. Nice product placement. Elvis
asked the kid to bring his car around. The boy hesitated, eyeing Elvis's bandaged left ankle.
“Not a problem,” Elvis said, winking. “It's my brake foot.”
It wasn't a problem, either. The Eldorado had automatic shift with plenty of room to stretch out his leg where the clutch would have been. He probably should have driven himself to the studio in the first place, except that Joanie and Joey would have kicked up a fuss. For a motherless child, he sure had a truckload of mothers.
Elvis headed out to the edge of the parking lot, then swung around onto the driveway, skirting the main entrance of the MGM building. He slowed to a halt at the front gate and rolled down his window. Nobody in the guard house to lift the gate. Elvis waited a couple of minutes, then tapped out “Shave and a Haircut” on his horn. A few seconds later, the guard came chugging up behind the car.
“Sorry, Mr. Presley,” he said. “Had to take care of the flag.”
He stepped into the guard house and the gate swung up. Just as Elvis started through, he caught a glimpse of the studio flagpole in his side mirror: it was at half-mast. Elvis inched back to the guard house.
“Somebody die?” he asked the guard, gesturing toward the pole.
“Nobody important,” the guard said. “But they want me to lower it for anyone connected to MGM. Turns out that's half of L.A.”
Elvis nodded. “Who was it?”
“Stuntman,” the guard said. “But not on the lotânothing to do with a picture. Accident at a rodeo somewhere in Nevada. Got kicked in the head by a crazy bull. Dumb way to die, wouldn't you say, Mr. Presley?”
Elvis felt his heart accelerate. “What was his name?”
The guard lifted a clipboard off of a hook and looked at it. “Cathcart,” he read. “Will Cathcart.”
Elvis's head began to spin. He closed his eyes. For a moment, he felt like he was again suspended from that stunt harness, a puppet swinging uncontrollably, colliding with struts and walls, raucous laughter soaring up at him.
Mickey Grieve's
laughter.
Elvis opened his eyes and hit the accelerator. He pulled out on the access road and headed for the freeway. Cathcart had written that he had important things to tell Elvis right after he got back from the rodeo. God in heaven, you didn't need to read Dr. Sigmund Freud to know that Will Cathcart's death was no accident, whether it involved some crazy bull or not.
Elvis was on the freeway before he realized that he was instinctively heading for West HollywoodâClifford's office. The day before yesterday, Squirm Littlejon's case may have been a diversion from all the little messes in Elvis's life, but that day was long ago and far away. A young man was dead. Elvis had been threatened within an inch of his life. If Holly McDougal's mother thought her daughter was a choir girl, she'd been sitting in the wrong pew. And Nancy Pollard was either a better liar than she was an actress, or Squirm Littlejon was hiding something.
Elvis pulled into the left lane to pass a poky Good Humor truck. And that is when, in his rearview mirror, he saw the blue Beetle slip in behind him. The same one as this morning, no doubt about it. The same bearded driver with a nightwatch cap pulled down to his eyebrows, and this time the driver was waving something in his right hand. It looked too large to be a gun, but Elvis wasn't about to hang around to see what it was. He pushed down on the accelerator and shot ahead about thirty yards until he was a car length behind a station wagon loaded with children in party hats. Elvis swung into the right lane, flooring it.
Man, he was flying now. Weaving in and out of all three lanes. He punched on the radio and like magic, there was Hank Snow filling the air with “It Don't Hurt Anymore.” No, Hank, it don't hurt. Not just now. Don't know why, but the hurt is gone. Or maybe it's still there but it don't matter. Elvis began to sing along with Snow, substituting “It don't matter any more” for “I don't hurt any more.” He glanced in his rearview mirror. No blue Beetle. “No blue Beetle any more,” he crooned, lurching back into the left lane and sailing ahead like a human cannonball.
The chorus came on, but this time old Hank had added some
winds, a flutey thing that wound around the melody like a silver ribbon. He'd added some lights too, red and blue strobes that bounced around the interior of the Eldorado on the offbeat. Man, how did Old Hank do that? The man was a genius.
“Pull over! Pull over immediately!”
Elvis looked again in his rearview mirror. That's where the lights were coming from. And that flutey thing too.
“Pull into the right lane now!”
Elvis pulled across two lanes in one swoop, then coasted to a stop on the shoulder, the cop car just behind him. He rolled down his window. Great air out there.
Fabulous
air out there.
“You're a menace, buddy! Doing ninety-plus,” the policeman barked. “License and registration.” He was a big man, no hat, no hair, and a fancy pair of aviator sunglasses. His face hovered in the car window like a shark in a fish tank.
Elvis handed him his license.
“Holy Mother of God, Elvis Presley!” the shark exclaimed.
“Yes, sir,” Elvis said. “Sorry I was speeding. But somebody was following me and I was trying to shake him.”
“I didn't recognize you, Mr. Presley,” the policeman said. “I mean, I must stop one kid a day who dresses up like you. Sideburns, hair, the whole deal.”
“No problem,” Elvis said. “Like I said, it's this man in a blue Beetle. Been on my tail all day.”
“Probably wants your autograph.”
“I think he wants more than that, Officer,” Elvis said.
“Well,
I
sure as hell want your autograph,” the policeman said, handing Elvis a traffic citation. “If you don't mind, make it out to TomâTom Schultz.”
“On this?”
“If that's all right, Mr. Presley.”
Elvis inscribed the traffic ticket and returned it to Officer Schultz.
“Thank you,” Schultz said. He removed his sunglasses and looked intently into Elvis's face. “Excuse me if I'm out of line, Mr. Presley, but are you feeling all right?”
“Just fine, thank you,” Elvis said.
“Good. I'm glad to hear that,” Schultz said.
“Why shouldn't I be, Officer?”
“Just something about your eyes,” Schultz said. “Look a little glassy. Sort of wobbly too. Like maybe you're coming down with something.”
Elvis laughed. “Oh, I've just been singing, Officer. Singing my fool head off with Hank Snow here, and it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.”
Elvis turned up the radio by way of demonstration, but Hank was now gone, replaced by Jimmy Gilmour and the Fireballs singing “Sugar Shack.” Not much of number, that one. Elvis snapped it off.
“Well, you take care of yourself, Mr. Presley,” the policeman was saying. “And if you ever need anythingâescort, special detailâyou just give me a ring, okay?” Schultz handed Elvis his card, winking. “Tell you what, Elvis, I'll escort you a bit now. Make sure no beetles are on your tail, especially none of those new English BeetlesâRingo, Paul, none of 'em. Ha!”
With this, the officer of the law burst into a boyish giggle and sauntered back to his car. He followed Elvis, his lights flashing, all the way to the West Hollywood exit.
Elvis had to smile when he saw the note on Clifford's door: INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS. BACK BY FIVE. The man had flair. Of course, there was something of the little kid who was just
playing
at a grown-up job in the way he put itâ“Investigation in progress.” Sounded like something Tubby might say to Little Lulu. Then again, the same could be said about Elvis himself, that he was just
playing
at being a detective. Surely that is the way the Colonel would put it.
Elvis darn well didn't feel like limping down the stairs again and waiting for Clifford in his car, but there were no chairs in the hallway. He could knock on the chiropractor's doorâDR. HIRAM GOLDSTEIN, DC, SERVING THE WELL ADJUSTED SINCE 1946âor on the
door to the Spanish travel agency, but just now he wasn't up to being recognized and all that usually followed from that.
He limped on one crutch over to the corner between Clifford's office and the travel agency, set both crutches against the wall, lowered himself onto the floor, and leaned back with his legs stretched out in front of him. That felt a whole lot better. Man, he was tired. He let his head loll against the wall, his eyelids fluttering. He was about to let his eyes close completely, when he suddenly saw another man sprawled on the floor across the hallway from him. The guy looked like a derelict who had crawled inside to catch a snooze away from the street. His face was blank, his eyes rheumy, his mouth slack. A bum.
It only lasted an instant. Then Elvis realized that he was looking at himself reflected in the frameless mirror next to Dr. Goldstein's door.
He
was that guy with the glassy eyes slumped against the wall next to a pair of crutches.
He
was the bum who had crawled inside like a wounded dog. Elvis put a hand to his face, watched his reflection mime him.
His twin
. The man he would have been. Could have been. Still could be. His eyelids began fluttering again, then closed completely, and Elvis drifted off into the sleep of the wordless song.
El Vez Perez-Lee
“Y
ou look like crap.”
“What?”
“
You
, pal. You look terrible.”
Elvis blinked open his eyes. Regis Clifford was stooped over him, waving a paper cup of coffee under his nose. Elvis looked around; he was in Clifford's office, slouched in the chair across from the attorney's desk.
“How'd I get in here?”
“Doc Goldstein helped. In fact, he gave you a little adjustment along the way. Your neck crackled like a string of firecrackers.”
Clifford handed the cup to Elvis who took a long swallow. It tasted awful, but did the trick. Coming fully awake, Elvis realized that he had enjoyed another one of those deep and renewing mini slumbers.
“Ready to hear my report?” Clifford said spiritedly. He looked peppier and more clear eyed than either of the other times Elvis had seen him.
Far
peppier.
“I'm ready,” Elvis said, taking another gulp of bitter coffee.
“Okay,” Regis said, sitting on the corner of his desk. “First, we're going to Mexico tomorrow. Leave at five in the morning on the Tequila Express. HectorâDr. Garciaâis expecting us. And listen to this, he has new data for us, something he's done on his own. Didn't want to tell me what it was until we got there, but he says it proves
that Littlejon is innocent.” Regis leaned toward Elvis. “You do have a passport, I hope.”
“I think so. From the army.” Elvis shrugged. “But I left it in Memphis.”
“Okay, okay. I'll come up with something. But now for the big enchilada.” Regis rubbed his palms together. “Norma McDougal, Holly's big sister. Norma and I had a lovely little lunch today at The Palms in Santa Monica. Crab salad, avocados, Chardonnay. Courtesy of my employer, by the way, but it was well worth it, believe me, Elvis.”
“I'm sure it was.”
“She wasn't hard to find, actually,” Regis said. “Still lives in the same neighborhood, although not with her mother any more. She works in a nursing home. A lot of bedpan duty, from what I gather. Let's just say she dreams of better things to come.”
Regis paused, his eyes flicking around the office, clearly scanning for a little evening pick-me-up. But apparently he was too eager to continue with his story to interrupt himself.
“Anyway, I didn't pull any punches with her,” he went on. “I told her we were reopening the Littlejon case. Didn't mention your name, of course. And I asked her what she knew about her late little sister's love life.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” Regis replied, with an odd smile. “She didn't know a damned thing about it.”
Elvis screwed up his face. “Where's the enchilada, Regis?”
“The enchilada is that Norma was just thrilled to finally be talking with a bonafide lawyer. That's me. Because Norma needed some expert legal advice on how to get her hands on Holly's savings account, not to mention her safety deposit box. It seems that Holly was a good saver.
Very
good. She left behind two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And God knows what in her safety deposit box.”
“That's a lot of savings for a chorus girl,” Elvis said.
“I know you people are notoriously overpaid, but I'd say so,” Regis said.
“Where do you suppose she got it?”
“I don't know and neither does Norma,” Regis said. “To put it mildly, I don't think the sisters were very close. I've seen pictures of Holly, and the gene pool seems to have overspent on her. Making up for the fact that it underspent on Norma. She's more than a bit chunky and somehow her eyes don't match. And if she ever forgot for a minute that she wasn't the family beauty, apparently Holly was always ready to remind her.”
“Doesn't Holly's money belong to the mother?” Elvis asked.
“Technically, if there was no will, yes,” Regis said. “But Mrs. McDougal doesn't know about the savings account. Or the safety deposit box, for that matter. Anyway, it's kind of open ended until we find out where exactly the money came from. There's always the chance that it was ill-got gains.”
“How does Norma know about it anyhow?”
“She found the bank book and the key cleaning out Holly's room,” Regis said. “This was only a few months ago. Mrs. McDougal wouldn't let anybody touch the room for years after Holly's death. Kept it as kind of a shrine, like Miss Haversham's wedding house.”
“Miss Haversham?”
“Dickens.
Great Expectations
. You should read it, Elvis.”
“I'll get to it after Dr. Freud,” Elvis said. “So where do we go with this, Regis?”
“Well, it certainly might be helpful to get into that safety deposit box,” Regis said. “The stuff people put in those boxes usually come with a story attached. Something you can trace back to where it came from. A lot more promising than anonymous bank notes.”
“And how exactly do we get into the safety deposit box?”
“I don't know, but I'm thinking about it. That's what I like about this businessâthe challenge.”
“Right, the challenge,” Elvis said. His stomach grumbled. Little wonder, he hadn't had a bite since his breakfast toast. He looked at his watchâ7:10. “Hold onâI got to make a phone call, Regis. Right now.”
“Go ahead,” Regis said. “I've got business to attend to anyhow.”
He sauntered out of the office like a man on a mission, that mission undoubtedly being a trip to the corner liquor store.
Elvis retrieved the scrap of paper Colonel had given him and dialed the long-distance operator. He gave her the Atlanta phone number. It rang just once, then, “Hello. Who is this?”
“Elvis Presley, ma'am.”
“What's the password?” the woman said.
“Password?”
“Yes, you're supposed to have a password so I know it's really you.”
It seems Parker's secretary hadn't bothered to jot down that part.
“I'm sorry, Miss Spinelli, but nobody gave me a password,” Elvis said.
“I can't risk it then,” Spinelli said. “Good-bye, Mr. Presley, or whoever you are.”
“Wait a second,” Elvis said. “Billy Jackson gave you this password, right?”
“That's right. He's a good man, by the way. And quite attractive.”
Elvis had to smile at that. Billy would be happy to hear that he still had the old charm. “You have good taste,” he said to Connie Spinelli.
“He took me out for drinks to a black bar,” she went on. “I've always wanted to go in one of those, but it's not something a woman does on her own. Not a white woman, at least.”
“I imagine not,” Elvis said. It was beginning to sound as if old Billy had made the most of this personal favor.
“Well, I'm sorry we can't talk more,” Spinelli was saying. “They have a way of tracking you down and making your life miserable, you know.”
“
Who
does?”
“I'm sorry,” Spinelli said. “I can't do this.”
“
Selma
!” Elvis blurted out spontaneously. “The password is âSelma.'”
“Well, why didn't you say that in the first place, Mr. Presley?” Spinelli exclaimed.
“I don't know, Miss Spinelli,” Elvis said. “So, what can you tell me about Holly McDougal?”
“A lot,” Spinelli said. Then, “Listen, you're not calling from the studio are you? They canâ”
“No, I'm at a friend's phone,” Elvis said. “And there's nobody else here at the moment.”
“Okay, thanks,” Spinelli said. She took an audible deep breath before continuing. “I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But the truth is the truth, living or dead, right Mr. Presley?”
“That's right.”
“Well, Holly was not a bad kid. Not really. But she had the bug, the same bug most of the girls in the business have, but maybe a little more so. She wanted to make it big, big as it gets. She wanted to be a star. Like you, Mr. Presley.”
“I see,” Elvis said, although the way Spinelli put it, being a star didn't sound like something that any healthy person would aspire to. Maybe she was right.
“You can't say that Holly's approach was particularly original,” Spinelli went on. “All those gags about the casting director's couch didn't come out of thin air, you know. I'd say more than half of the starlets and chorus girls put in time on somebody's couch. Hell, Marilyn Monroe, may her soul rest in peace, wasn't averse to keeping the big bosses happy in a personal way. Comes with the territory, I guess.”
“I guess it does,” Elvis said. None of this was really a surprise to him, but it gave him a queasy feeling anyhow.
“But with Holly, the whole thing kind of took on a life of its own,” Spinelli went on. “I don't know exactly where you draw the line between trading favors for parts in movies and being an out-and-out call girl, but I'd say that Holly crossed that line wherever it is.”
“She told you this?”
“Certainly did,” Spinelli said. “I'd be doing her nailsâthat's my specialty, you knowâI'd be doing her nails and she would chatter away about this one and that one she'd been with. I've got to say,
the whole business didn't seem like a chore to her. She seemed to take real pride in it. Nothing wrong with that, I supposeâtaking pride in your work.”
“Did she mention any of the men by name?” Elvis asked.
“Some,” Spinelli said. “A couple of casting directors I knew of. A few talent agents. And a whole lot of other people I never heard of. I didn't keep track. It's quite a list.”
“So she was, you knowâshe was charging a fee for her services?” Elvis asked.
Spinelli laughed. “Why, Mr. Presley, that's hard for you to ask, isn't it? You
are
a Southern gentleman, just like they say. I'm still not used to that out here. Not after Hollywood.”
“She was just so young, that's all,” Elvis said, feeling embarassed, although he was not sure why.
“Holly was seventeen going on thirty, like most of them,” Spinelli said. “Girls grow up faster out there. Age faster too. Believe me, that's something you learn very quickly in the makeup department.”
Elvis scratched his jaw. He did not have any idea what a call girl charged, but it was hard to imagine it adding up to a quarter of a million dollars in just a couple of years.
“Where ⦠Where did Holly meet her ⦠clients?” he asked.
Spinelli laughed again. “Oh, this is the real crazy part,” she said. “Holly set herself up right there on the lot. She said that way she was always available if a part came up. She'd check in all day with the line producersâyou know, to see if some chorus girl called in sick or broke her ankle or something. And if a part came up, she'd just leave some guy stranded, waiting for her in the stunt shack.”
“The stunt shack? Is that where sheâ”
“Yes, that was Holly's little base of operations,” Spinelli said. “It didn't strike me as a Paris boudoir exactly. Not particularly private, for one thing. Have you ever been out there?”
“Just yesterday,” Elvis said. No need to tell Spinelli about his harness adventure.
“So you know what I mean,” Spinelli went on. “But Holly said that most of the men liked it. Something macho about the setting.
You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Presley, but when it comes to men's sexual predilections, I get out of my depth pretty fast. That's probably why I'm still single.”
“To tell you the truth, Miss Spinelli, I don't understand that much about it myself,” Elvis said.
This time Spinelli laughed so hard that she had to set down the receiver for a moment. When she came back on, she said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Presley, but that sure takes the prizeâ
Elvis Presley doesn't understand that much about sex
â”
“I just meant the strange stuff, ma'am,” Elvis interjected quickly and a little more loudly than he had intended.
“Well, God bless you for that, Mr. Presley,” Spinelli said. “It takes a real man to admit something like that.”
Elvis was about to thank her for the compliment, but stopped himself, realizing that he wanted to get off this little side topic as swiftly as possible.
“So all the stuntmen must have known what was going on,” he said.
“I don't know about
all
of them,” Spinelli said. “Some of those stunt kids can be pretty wet behind the ears. The cowboys and rodeo punks especially. But the regulars knew what was up, all right. They took out her rent in trade, if you know what I mean.”